


this world leads us to guilt

by scarlett_starlett



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Alternate Universe - Pirate, But Wade doesn't know it, Drifter!Wade Wilson, F/M, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Love at First Sight, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Rated for Deadpool's Language, Siren!Peter, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-18 19:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12394530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarlett_starlett/pseuds/scarlett_starlett
Summary: Wade remembers when he was kinder—when he could dip his fingertips in warm sea water and wonder, when the red haze didn’t blur his thoughts to black and he came back alone, bloody, and shaking to the bodies.There were always bodies.But what makesthisbody more important than all the others?(Or the Pirate/Siren AU in which Wade “Deadpool” Wilson, a fearsome pirate with no ties to any ship, recalls the circumstances leading to the one person he wishes to die at the hands of—a Siren by the name of Peter.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I churned this one out in a hyper-focused, 5 hour, writing binge so that's my excuse for the unsurprisingly weird turns this fic takes... and the fact that it's a weird idea in general, when you really think about it. Also, just to avoid any confusion, the way the story is formatted is: present, followed by flashbacks. I split it up into chapters so that it's easy to follow, but I just wanted to give you all a heads up to where my brain was was when I wrote this. This fic is entirely Wade-centric; that's my excuse for some gaps in the story. Maybe if I get dragged into another hyper-focused writing binge, I'll do Peter's perspective. But, for now, I hope you enjoy a background pining!Peter and Wade Wilson just trying is fucking best.

i.

“200 gold.”

“Ha! You’ve gotta’ be pulling my long johns—and ain’t _that_ a funny word, where’d it come from, no, seriously, where?—like I’d go out of my way to end some poor prick’s life for _200 gold!_ I don’t _care_ how long we’ve known each other—this is a shitty job you’ve asked me to do! I gotta’ go halfway around the world to end some poor saps life. Y'know how much work that is? _A lot,_ in case you're wondering. You’d be lucky to make me walk _halfway across town_ for that much gold. What the fuck kind of idiot pissed you off enough to need to hire _me_ , anyway? I’m the _worst_ pirate to ever pirate the seas!” Wade guffaws, his muddy boots dripping gunk on the desk he was resting them on. He shakes his foot a little, manic grin widening at the murder he can see building behind Logan “Wolverine” Howlett's eyes.

Honestly, the jokes write themselves.  

“You ain’t a pirate,” Logan grunts back, his frown _deepening_ somehow. Wade spends a good split-second marveling how that could be so before he loses interest.

“Fuck you! 500 gold _at the minimum!_ ” Wade exclaims. The Captain sets his teeth and goes to open his mouth, only to stop and draw his blade when Wade unexpectedly shoves a finger in his face. “Ah, ah! Before you go off on another one of your infamously growly rants, let me finish! Lord, everyone is always in such a _hurry._ How about this? I’ll go across the sea and end that poor bastard’s life for 500 gold. 600 gold and I’ll bring back _proof_ that he is very, very dead—otherwise you can’t be sure, can you? You ever thought of that? How Captain’s will hire rogue but ravishing cutthroats like me, but they never really _ask_ for any proof—they just assume they killed that person! What if they let them go with the promise that—oh, promise of broth and _fried fish_ , have you ever had fried fish on the islands ‘round here? To _die_ for, _literally_ —and, wait, where was I, oh, yeah, _yeah,_ no proof! No proof! Fuckin’ _shame._ As long as they’re quiet and hidden, they get to keep their life and I get to keep the gold. Why are Captain’s so fucking stupid—!”

“ENOUGH!” Logan roars, eyes flashing.

Wade leans forward, baring his teeth in a dangerous grin. “Not need to yell, _Wolvy._  I’ve got ears, yanno?”

“Then _use them_ ,” he snaps back. “450 gold and you bring back their _finger—_ you hear me, Wade? Their _finger._ Not their goddamn ear or lip or, god forbid, _their leg_.”

“That was a good day,” Wade adds, cheerily.

Captain Logan grimaces. “You’ve got until the solstice, Wilson. You’re resourceful—you’ll find me when you have to. Until then, you get 225 gold to tide you over. You’ll get the rest when the job is done.”

“ _That long?_ Do ya’ really think it’s gonna’ take me _that long_ to off a guy, Wolvy, _ughhh_ , now I’m just offended! Absolutely baffled! _Bamboozled_ —!” Wade chokes off when Logan grabs him around his untucked scarf, bringing him in close, lip pulled up to reveal a very sharp canine.

“Ye’ shut yer trap or I do it for ya’,” Logan growls, raising a clawed hand. Captain Logan was one of the more fearsome pirates that roamed the sea, certainly—considering he was not exactly _human_ and it showed, especially when he was angry, _which_ , Wade would argue until he was blue in the face, was _all the time._

“A man of action! I _like_ it.”

Logan scoffs, disgusted, and shoves him back into his seat.

Wade giggles the entire way down.

“Just get the fucking job done,” Logan grouses, lighting up a cigar. He throws Wade a bag of gold and he catches it, still giggling, still repeating the joke in his head like he can’t help himself.

“Oh, Wolvy! Is that all I am to you? A means to an end? A sword to your hairy, hobbit hand?” Wade dramatically asks, kicking off the desk and onto his feet. His heavy coat flourishes behind him, nearly trailing the ground, black with armor where it matters and a bright, bloody red where it doesn't. His gloves crinkle with his excited clenching, a wired grin on his handsome, if marred, face. The scars and uneven skin were from battles, Wade would boast to those who stared, but some look like fingernails scratched down cheeks in the midst of a horror; skin peeled and scarred and peeled and scarred again.

Logan says through his exhale of smoke, “You’re a killer, Wade, not a pirate. It’s what you do best,” and meets Wade’s sharp gaze with a stony one, teeth biting into the cigar. “You’ve _always_ been a killer.”

“…I suppose so,” Wade says after a moment, then booms a loud laugh. There’s haze on the edge of his vision. His grin becomes a tad wider, scars stretching his pale skin in an unsightly expression that clashes with his cheery words. “Gets the ladies hot when you tell them how you survived nearly getting butchered by a bunch of street urchin the next land mass over—they came in ARMIES, Logan, _ARMIES—!”_

“Get the hell off my ship,” Logan dismisses, ignoring Wade’s increasingly manic retelling, not batting an eye when two of his crew peer their heads in at the signal and promptly drag a screeching, giggling, _elated_ Wade “Deadpool” Wilson off the ship with little more than a couple tugs and a vague threat of not wanting to catch him around the ship until he finished the job.

“Ah, fuck you, Scotty, you wanker! Ya’ know Wolvy is only _using_ you! He’ll leave you to die when you’re no longer spry and sharp! Won’t be long now—I hear ya’ going to the Dead Sea! He must _really_ want to get rid of his current chicks if he’s bringing you all _there,_ ” Wade coos, grinning viciously when Scott Summers steps forward at the threat, barely held back by his crewmate, Henry McCoy.

“He’s mad, Scott,” Henry says quietly, observing Wade from behind his spectacles. “You’ve _heard_ what they say about him. Don’t let his ramblings get to you.”

“What do they say about me, beasty boy? Am I a pretty lady? Soft in all the places that matter?” Wade bats his eyes and sniggers when Scott recoils in disgust. “I hope they’re saying nice things about my ass. I really do try hard to keep in shape when I'm not out on the _lamb!_ ” He laughs.

"Lamb? Don't you mean _—_?"

Wade walks away mid-conversation instead, humming deliriously to himself, the haze becoming black and red in his brain. His fists clench. He squeezes his eyes shut to come back to himself, but his grin stays plastered on his face; it’s the only thing he can do to keep the mania from seeping into his bones again, from peeling his soul from his mangled body to do unspeakable things to the bodies—the bodies of everyone on this port, the bodies of everyone _anywhere._

There are always bodies.

“But not so unspeakable, if I can speak of them,” Wade talks to himself, staring at the evening sky with that same vacant grin on his face the entire time.

 

* * *

 

When Wade was young, his daddy beat the _shit_ out of his ma’ so hard once that she didn’t wake up for half the day.

Wade remembers patting her cheek nervously, trying to wake her because his daddy would beat _him_ next if she didn’t and then he wouldn’t be able to care for her. But, this time, she didn’t wake up like usual. It wasn’t uncommon for his ma’ to be briefly unconscious only to come back with a moan of pain and a promise to end her miserable husband’s life, gripping Wade’s fingers tightly, spitting curses at his father some days or just quietly whimpering others.

She didn’t wake up that time.

She stayed still, neck bent at an awkward angle, her beautiful blonde hair tousled and tangled from where his father had grabbed and shaken her in his rage.

“Ma? Ma, wake up,” Wade remembers whispering, voice growing louder and louder. “Ma? Ma! _Ma_ , please wake up!”

Then she did.

“Fuckin’ _a_ ,” his ma had gasped faintly, clutching her swollen face, scooting up until she was curled into her small son’s frail body—barely a boy, so far from being a man and escaping this hell. “Where’s he?” She slurred and he shook his head, whispering that he’d left to see his friends after striking her and swatting at his head. “I’ll kill ‘em, s’what I’ll do!” His ma slurred out again, pitiful, pathetic. “I—I’ll do it—I…” she sobbed, and Wade held her closely because he didn’t know what else to do.

He was also sad and pitiful and pathetic.  

“You _never_ be like that, ya’ hear me, Wade?” she hissed, digging her chipped nails into his forearm. That’s where he gets his first scars. “You _never_ hurt who you love. Never. Never,” she let out a wretched cry that Wade can sometimes hear in his dreams, when he does dream. “ _Never.”_


	2. Chapter 2

ii.

“CHIPS AHOY!” Wade blurts out suddenly, waking from his doze with a hand on his sword and another flapping above him. The sun is a bright burning ball of light that nearly blinds him when he scrambles upright. The tiny little boat he’d marooned himself in carries on in the sea as its meant to. “Huh. Chips Ahoy. Sounds like a fuckin’ franchise—what would the old ladies down at the port say if I told ‘em even their grandkids _grandkids_ will be feelin’ _that_ legacy,” and he lays back down in his boat, feet hanging off the edge.

It’s silent out at sea.

Ironically, he likes the idea of piracy because of the silence it comes with, the gentle currents of the sea, the emptiness. Pirates travel in ships; they spend most their life out at sea, among a crew of burly, sun-tanned, men, and Wade can’t exactly disagree with that since he once went out to sea following a burly, sun-tanned, man with a fucked-up eye, a hooked hand, and a messiah complex... only to end up abandoned on a far-off island with natives that didn’t know a rock from a fucking walnut.

Needless to say, Wade’s endeavors in love never turn out _right._

“It’s fucking _hot_ —why’d I think it was a good idea to sail by myself? Oh, yeah, because I’m motherfuckin’ Deadpool!” Wade cackles as the boat sails on into the everlasting sea—no land in sight, no bodies around.

But that’s fine.

It’s quiet when it needs to be, and when it doesn’t, Deadpool has always been good at keeping the conversation going.

But there, a few meters away, a man follows with his chin just above the sea waves, his tawny brown hair glistening dark with the sun’s rays, watching Deadpool quietly and with an inscrutable look in his captivating eyes as the assassin dissolves into another delusional, manic episode alone at sea.

 

* * *

 

Wade was thirteen when he came home to his daddy shaking his ma’ frantically on the floor, face three shades lighter, calling her name over and over.

“Daddy?” Wade had rasped out, his heart pounding out of his chest.

His daddy had looked up at him with those bloodstained, mad, eyes and made an aborted gesture to his ma’s still body.

“Well? What’re you waiting for, boy? Get a fuckin’ bedsheet before she makes a mess!”

It’s the first time the haze comes to him _fully_ and not as a fuzziness at the edge of his vision.

If Wade had to describe it, he would say it feels like a voice—sinuous, ever-present. It's a hot and ragged hiss against his ear that drowns out the world and his heartbeat until only silence remains.

It’s the only way he can achieve true silence for a long, long time.

Wade had grabbed one of his daddy’s bottles instead, broke it against the edge of the table, and jammed the jagged edges into the soft flesh of his daddy’s throat—grinding glass until it stripped muscle and pierced through to the other side, his father gasping and clawing at his arms. It's where his second scars come from. His ma’ laid motionless on the floor, neck bent at an awkward angle, a kitchen knife in her hand, beautiful blonde hair spilled over dirty concrete.

_“I’ll kill ‘em_ ” she’d always said, but she never did. She was sad and pitiful and pathetic. She was too scared of him and Wade was, too, once.

Then his daddy went and killed his _ma’_.

No one can _really_ blame him for shoving another glass bottle down his father’s throat after the deed was done. They can’t blame him for dragging his body out to sea, for rolling it into a tarp and dumping it over the dock with stones tied to his limbs so it’d stay down for the fish. They can’t blame him for burying his ma’ in that lovely field of sunflowers she liked to walk through when his daddy was out; they can’t blame him for running, for stealing, for nearly walking to the gallows in one memorable occasion, or for getting tangled in _Weapon X_ when they raided a town Wade had taken refuge in _._ They can’t blame him for _joining_ the savage band of pirates that will irrevocably drown him in the madness he lives with now and forever.

No one can blame him for anything that happened that morning.

But Wade does. He blames himself every day.

Not for the murder that started it all.

But for being too late to save her.


	3. Chapter 3

iii.

“CAPTAIN CRUNCH!” Deadpool blurts out suddenly and stops mid-safari adventure on his way to his target. His tiny little boat is tied up by shore. He has half a concern that it’ll get stolen, but he’s gotten through worst misadventures without any back-up before. His lips are dry and his stomach empty, but the meager food the natives had given him will tide him over until he reaches where he needs to reach. 450 gold for this shit-show? He would’ve _killed_ Logan if he weren’t one of his only friends.

The guide he’d hired looks back at him weirdly at the exclamation, shoulders hunched up.

“What?” he asks, accent heavy in each syllable.

“I just thought of another fucking chain! Lemme’ tell ya’, those old ladies at the port are going to be _loaded_ in a few years _,"_ Deadpool grins and gestures ahead with his pistol, chrome glistening dangerously under the evening sun. The guide’s eyes linger on the crusted blood on the barrel. “MOVE AHEAD, KNAVE! TO THE TOMB FOR THE BOOTY!”

“What is booty?”

“I hear it’s a type of infection,” Deadpool answers without missing a beat, beaming when the guide mouths the words back to himself in confusion before shaking his head and continuing on.

“Up ahead,” the guide gestures after another two hours and various more sudden ‘chain’ exclamations from the stranger that landed on their shores and so politely asked for a guide into the Savage Lands. After all, they didn’t often get visitors from other parts to visit like this unless they were trade boats, and those people only stayed for as long as they needed to. “I cannot take you any further. Too dangerous. The creatures, they will smell and hunt us.”

“Is that so, is that so? Well, my friend, you’ve taken me far enough, then. Here, a penny for your troubles!” Deadpool pleasantly smiles behind the bandana over his mouth, handing the guide a raggedy baggy of jewels. The guide’s eyes widen and he sputters at the gesture, holding the bag reverently. “Don’t let the shiny distract you from the _real_ meaning in life!”

“This—this—!” The guide gapes, still staring at the jewels. “Meaning?!”

“ _The booty,_ ” Wade whispers, and skips ahead with that funny laugh of his.

“My friend, no! It is dangerous! The creatures!” The guide calls back, fearful for his strange, but very generous, friend. “There are pirates there, too! Dangerous ones. The worst!”

“Good. That's exactly what I'm looking for,” Deadpool tightens his grip on his sword, his carefree grin becoming a tad bloodthirsty as he disappears into the dense undergrowth.

He’s close. He's so close to finding his target, it makes his hands shake with excitement. 

Wade hasn't let him out in a good while; he's going to savor this, he's going to make it  _bloody._

The haze has been bad these past few days leading up to his targets imminent demise; it’s always bad when he takes too long on a hit, but sometimes planning takes time. He has to visit his connections first, always has to make deals, trades, contracts, _boring, boring, **boring,**_ but the last time he went into a job unprepared, it’d ended with a spear in his goddamn _back_ and he _still_ has no idea how he survived that.

He’d crawled to the seashore, sure his time had come and he hadn’t even tasted that new apple pie from stand down in York City, but then it had been a hazy mess of sensation, translucent green eyes, and a faint sense of loss.

There are many bodies in the world; many faceless ones, important ones, forgettable ones, criminal ones.

Then there was _that_ body—and Wade doesn’t really know why that particular body haunts his dreams, sometimes, or makes the haze a little more manageable when he thinks about the delusion because it _must_ have been a delusion.

All he knows is that _that_ body makes everything easier, calmer, like the sea.

Like his ma’ did, before his daddy took her from him.  

 

* * *

 

“You’re a fool,” Wade remembers that special body had said with rancor, but also too much concern for it to be real. “How could you just walk in there with only a sword and a half-loaded pistol? What—did you _want_ to die? Is that it?” he growled, and Wade felt a sharp yank of agony down his side. He grunted at it, teeth gritting, blood drizzling down the edge of his chin. The spear. He hadn't even realized someone had pulled it out, somehow. He didn't remember much, really. 

“It’s a good day when I almost die,” Wade had forced out and peeled an eye open, only to stare into flat hazel green ones. Captivating hazel green eyes—they’re absolutely captivating. “Well. Fuck. Hello, beautiful. You come’re often?”

“Oh, shut up! Do you have to flatter every single person that speaks to you?” he snapped, and Wade grinned a little, teeth bloody.

“Hoh. Y’sound very mad. S’only time I hear som’on’ sound that mad is when I’ve been naughty. ‘Ave we slept together, that it? Sorry—can’t be a great to see ma’ face in broad daylight and realize ya’ got busy with this shit-show. I make a harpy look sexy.”

“YOU—!”

“Wait! Don't tell me! I know!” Wade coughed bloody. The man sucked in a sharp breath, all fury draining at the sight of Wade’s bloody coughs. Even sadness was beautiful on this boy! Wade remembered not really believing it.

So he didn’t.

“Stop, don’t force yourself,” the man said, gently, but Wade didn’t deserve gentle. He deserved bloody coughs and black edging his vision. He deserved _this_.

“Can’t be that. Think I’d be there enough to ‘member someone as pretty as you,” Wade squinted at the man, at his translucent green eyes, sharp cheekbones, his unmarred skin, his toned shoulders. He’d seen so many bodies in his life, but this one was a work of art. “Yeah, can’t be—I’m a fuckin’ horror, no way I could land you,” he decided, and groaned when the man moved him a little further out so the rolling waves didn’t touch the wound. Salt water in a wound was a goddamn nightmare.

“You really don’t remember me, do you? Unbelievable,” the man sighed, then prickled in jealousy again. “You’re a whore, Wilson! You defend my honor, pledge yourself to me, and then go gallivanting into someone else’s sheets!”

“Hey! When you look like me, ain’t no living if you don’t take every opportunity giv’n to ya’,” Wade slurred out. “Not that there’s been much action—kinda’ hard, when you look like something outta’ a horror story and you’re out killing people again—oops, there I went, murdering again as I do best—all for the highest bit of gold!”

“Spoken like a true pirate. Suppose I should be grateful for the fact that gold outweighs warming another person’s sheets for you. Incorrigible man,” he snorted, and Wade let out a whine when the man did something that felt like he was pouring lemon juice into his wound. “Hold still—this will keep you from dying of sepsis!”

“Sep-wha?”

“Lord, why _you?_ Of all the people, why you?" 

“Rotten luck. I don't even wanna' be _me_ most times."

"Oh, hold still."

"Do gotta’ say this,” Wade had slurred, eyes rolling up to stare at the blue sky. “You are the second most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Enough with the flattery—!”

“My ma’ was the first beautiful thing m’seen,” Wade hummed quietly, his heart drumming in his ears. The pretty boy was staring at him with an odd look on his face, a kind of yearning coupled with a kind of horrified realization that Wade is too exhausted to really parse out. “She died.”

“Oh…I’m sorry for your loss.”

“I am, too,” Wade breathed out wetly, eyes rolling closed against the sun and the prettiest boy he'd ever had the honor of seeing.


	4. Chapter 4

iv.

There were always bodies, as far back as he can remember.

That is—there were always _dead_ bodies, because Wade is a killer. He is a killer and a maniac and pirates hire him to take out other pirates and persons of interests because he’s the best there is in the seven seas despite the mad glint in his eye and the once-handsome face marred by ugly scars.

Wade remembers people, but Deadpool remembers them as _bodies_ because they always end up dead one way or another.

Sometimes it’s easier to look at things through Deadpool’s eyes.

But not all of these bodies are borne from senseless rage or rampant debauchery on his part; some are borne from vengeance or from need, others are borne from desperate pleads and an offered half-chunk of bread, from bony, tiny hands and big, watery eyes.

Wade Wilson bleeds for those who have no resolve—for those who are too scared, huddled in their own corners, arms covering their face. Sad and pitiful and pathetic.

(necks bent at an awkward angle, beautiful blonde hair spilled over dirty concrete)

Deadpool does what needs to be done.

Deadpool racks up the body count wherever he goes; Wade Wilson just tells him who needs to _become a body._

He’s always been this way—two-in-one, a stumbling contradiction, moments of color interspersed with black. Soft where he should be coarse, gentle where he should be rough. He’s strangled men to death and watched the life bleed out of their eyes gleefully, but he’ll still touch a lover’s body with a fearful, timid touch that makes no sense when one has seen what he could do with a belt buckle and a plank of wood.

But that isn’t what Captain Logan is paying for. He’s pay for Deadpool to add another thirteen bodies to his ledger; thirteen bodies littered about him in various degrees of dismemberment, eyes rolled wide in terror, their mouths twisted in screams.

Deadpool doesn’t care about bodies.

“A finger, Logan, _really?_ Are you even trying?” Deadpool snorts, holding up an entire arm, hewn off messily at the shoulder. “How about five fingers? A wrist? A forearm? A bicep?” Deadpool snickers and giggles and chortles and hysterically laughs as he grips the severed arm on his hand and wiggles it about. “450 gold for a dirty finger! I could’ve ripped one off a street beggar, they would have had better nails!” Then the laughter dies off, the haze recedes, and Wade Wilson is left with the bodies, the blood, the shakes, the reek of raw meat.

Deadpool doesn’t care about bodies, but Wade Wilson does.

He drops the arm, hunches over.

The sea quietly laps at the shoreline.

“Fuck,” Wade heaves, then slaps a hand over his mouth. He straightens when he thinks he can keep it down, stares at a clean spot of sand on the ground, and hastens to grab a flask of rum tucked inside his coat. He guzzles it down until it’s empty and then guzzles half of his second one before he’s done and he’s not as shaky, not as cold, as when he comes back from Deadpool’s massacres. Wade drops down to his knees and sits back on his ass, facing the open sea and not the pile of bodies behind him.

“You can leave,” Wade says hoarsely after a moment, when he hears slight movement behind him. It stops. “You’re free, now. There’s a boat that way,” he waves vaguely down the shoreline. “Should be enough to fit all of you. If it ain’t, feel free to take the ship. No one’s gonna’ use it, anyway—not out here,” Wade shrugs. He picks dry blood off his hand. It throbs. He’s hurt. He hadn’t even noticed.

Deadpool hadn’t cared about the hostages, only the pirates, so Wade rests easier. It’s an improvement.

Deadpool would have killed _everyone,_ once upon a time, and he's stuck on that thought for a while.

Wade doesn’t notice if the hostages take the ship or his small boat.

Or when the sun sets.

Or when the air becomes cold and bitter.

Or when the dark becomes a pressing film against his eyeballs and the smell of raw meat becomes decaying meat. 

The next time he’s aware of anything at all, it’s to someone gently cleaning the wound on his thigh. In fact, when he comes back from the silence, his hands are clean and bandaged—along with his torso, his shoulders. He hadn’t noticed someone disrobing him, someone gently touching him. He hasn’t been touched gently in a long time.

So he feels entirely justified when he jerks away, kicking back and reaching for his sword, only to come up empty.

“It’s okay—look, your sword is here!” the boy—no, _man—_ says carefully, gesturing to the sheathed sword beside him. Wade immediately takes it, but doesn’t draw it, just keeps it pressed tightly against his chest as the man raises his hands placatingly. It’s only then that Wade realizes they’re still by the shoreline and the man, he’s—

_What the fuck?_

“Where’s the rest of your body?” Wade blurts, and then blinks as he _really_ looks at him. It’s _him_ , Wade thinks dumbly, the beautiful man from his delusion; the one that haunts him, the one that takes the noise away. Sinuous, sensual—a pleasing curve of scales makes up his legs, shiny and healthy. Sharp cheek bones, age-broadened shoulders, and translucent green eyes. Wade knows he's not in a haze, so this has to be real, _what the fuck._ “Wait—that _is_ the rest of your body. What the fuck, you’re gorgeous. Unfair. No wonder your kind hangs out in the sea—you’d make all us human men run away in shame,” he adds, dropping his sword. “What’s one of _you_ doing so far out here, anyway? You got a death wish, pretty boy?” Wade demands, and smiles when the man cocks a brow, lips pulled up in an exasperated but kind smile, the beginnings of sass on the tip of his tongue. Wade can see it, but as much as he wants to continue this conversation with such a pretty creature, such a beautiful man, Wade needs to go. He’s already super late and Logan would, actually, kill him and probably succeed. “No matter! Thank for the bandages—don’t do that again,” he adds, waggling at finger at the merman. “Ain’t interferin’ with fate against your religion or something?”

“You must have us confused with the harpy’s,” pretty boy deadpans, arms crossed over his sculpted chest.

Wade sniggers. “ _Knew it._ ”

“And don’t be a fool. Sit back down,” the man points at the sand. “I’m not finished yet.”

“Ah, that’s a familiar saying, but usually not under these circumstances!” Wade sings, and winces when the pretty merman bristles at the comment. He grabs Wade by his coat and pulls him down until he’s sitting again.

“Wilson!” the merman snaps, and Wade stiffens, wide-eyed. Well, _there_ was a heat he didn’t think he’d ever feel at the sound of his surname. He hates his surname. But he thinks he’d like it a little more if _he_ said it like that again. “Just sit down and _let me help you,_ ” he insists. “You’re wounded. I’m almost done, and then you can go do whatever you do when you’re _traveling_.” He spits the word out like _fucking_ and Wade awkwardly looks around him, clearing his throat.

“You sound mad.”

“I’m not mad,” he says, clipped, and rips a piece of cloth with his very sharp talons.

Wade eyes him warily. “Oh- _kay_. Now, I may be entirely _insane_ and _out of touch_ most of the time, but I do _know_ what a jealous lover sounds like. Sort of. Mostly. I’m pretty sure this time, anyway. So, who was it? _Promise_ she never knew who it was—a face like this doesn’t really get anything revving. At all.”

“It wasn’t _anyone!”_ the man snaps, glowering at Wade. Wade raises his brows slowly. Pretty boy flushes and mutters, “…Not a girl.”

“A _man?_ That’s even _easier!_  They _definitely_ never see my face,” Wade complains, cursing when Peter presses sharply into his wound. “OW—what? It’s true!”

“I don’t want to _hear_ it, Wilson,” the man growls, eyes flashing again. Flashing eyes, Wade thinks a little dumbly. Pretty, flashing, eyes. Innocent, kind, sweet eyes. He remembers them. He—he’s _seen_ them before, a long time ago. “It’s bad enough I don’t have the heart to _drown_ you, but if you keep reminding me of what you get up to on land, I just _might.”_

_“_ Aw, shit,” Wade groans when he remembers. He pinks a little. Pretty Peter boy grins viciously at it. “You're pulling my johns. It’s _you!”_

“Yes, you numskull, it’s me,” is all that Peter says, very unamused. Wade doesn’t know why he’s looking at him like he’s an idiot. How the hell was Wade supposed to know _Peter_ the helpless mermaid would grow up to be tie me down and fish-tail fuck me _Peter_ the not-so-helpless mer _man?_ “It took you long enough.”

 

* * *

 

There was a time when Wade was kinder.

Wade remembers when he was kinder with the type of nostalgia a seaman far from their mother’s home does—and so Wade sometimes remembers when he could dip his fingertips in warm sea water and wonder, when the red haze didn’t blur his thoughts to black and he came back alone, bloody, and shaking to the bodies.

There were always bodies.

But a long time ago there was a _boy,_ not a body.

This was when he had been kinder.

Wade remembers this much, always.

The boy had been caught in a net, struggling, writhing, and Wade watched from his perch on the deck as the crew reeled him in with chortles and screams of glee because _mermen_ were so rare, so difficult to catch alive. Wade had been drinking out of a bottle of rum, his steely blue eyes clear at that time, not the cloudy, mad, haze they are now.

The merman was _barely_ a man—Wade put him at sixteen, fifteen if the light hit him just right. He was more mer _boy_ than man and it showed in every flail of gangly limbs, every squeaking, struggling sound. He was heaved aboard and Wade watched, fingers digging into his bottle, as the crewmen groped and grabbed him, laughing, their chapped lips stretched wide over yellowed teeth and their dark eyes greedily drinking in the beautiful, slender creature that lay curled on the wood, trembling, terrified.

Sad, pitiful, pathetic.

“Aw, c'mon, boys! Let ‘em go,” Wade had said, back when he was kinder. “He’s just a kid—out on the wrong side of the sea. Happened to me once and, _ho_ , did I regret tuna for a long time.”

“What’re you, _mad_ , Wilson? He’s a _merman—_ they’re practically worth the crown!”

Perhaps that’s when the madness began to take root, Wade would think when remembers this day during his more lucid weeks.

“Fuck the crown—I hear it doesn’t even weigh that much. More copper, less gold. He’s just a boy.”

“No, Wade is right,” someone else shouted. It’s the second-mate. Good! Yay! Authority figure.

“Finally, someone with reason!”

“He’s worth more than gold _,_ ” the second mate had said gleefully, lips cracking in a dark, sick grin that put Wade’s hair at end. He had stared at the boy, intently. Lustfully. Wade felt dirty just looking at the stare. “He’s—he’s _mine._ I saw him first, therefore I get to decide what happens to him.”

“What?” Wade exclaimed. “ _No_ —wrong! Let’s go back to the part where I was convincing everyone to let the kid go so we could go on our merry ways?”

“ _You_ aren’t convincin’ anyone of anything, Wilson! And if you got a problem with it, get the fuck off my ship.”

“ _Your_ ship? Pray tell, how is this _your_ ship? Thought this was your _brother’s_ ship,” Wade had replied, his boots clunking as he sauntered down the steps to meet the wild-eyed second mate down below. The merboy had scrambled away from Wade when he neared him, but watched everything unravel with wide, fear-blown, eyes. The rest of the crew was silent with tension, gazes stuck on the boy, as if hypnotized. “Maybe he should come down here to settle this, no? Right, fellas?” Wade had laughed, gesturing to the rest of the silent crew, all nervously eying their furious superior and unable to help glancing back at the merboy. Bunch of weirdos, Wade remembered thinking at the time. “No harm in asking for a second opinion, eh?”

“Fuck you, Wilson, I told that idiot brother of mine that you were nothin’ but trouble!” the second mate roared, and drew his sword. “I won’t let you take him for yourself! You can’t have him—!”

Wade hadn't given him time to monologue before he jammed the pointy end of his own sword into his gut. He boomed a laugh when the pirate only wheezed, clutching his wrist in a deaths grip.

“What are you, _mad?_ ” Wade mocked in his ear softly, twisting the sword. “Don’t’cha know I’m one of the best swordsman on this side of the fuckin’ sea? What did you think was gonna’ happen? _Idiot_.” He slid the body off his sword, wiped it against his pants leg, and barely had time to turn around and sigh in irritation before the entire crew was on him in a savage rage.

Really, though.

What did they _think_ was going to happen?

He’s Wade “Deadpool” Wilson! As if some _mangy_ sonsofbitches were going to be the ones to help him find his last death.

"Ah, ah!" Wade had shouted, throwing a dagger at the pirate who drew too close to the merboy. "Don't touch the goods, now, what would father say?" He laughed, and kicked the pirate overboard. He remembered looking into the boy's wide eyes as he said, "Don't move, pretty boy, if you know what's good for ya'. It's about to get real messy here, and we wouldn't want anything to happen to you, right? I hear the king of you fishies is into impaling humans with his big, pointy fork and I'm not about that!" 

"What? Where did you hear that?" The merboy blinked rapidly, confused. 

"The old ladies at the port," Wade said, defensively.

"What's a fork?"

"Oh, that's funny," Wade giggled. "Get It? Because he's a little mermaid?"

"I am _not_ a mermaid! I know I have a tail, but not everyone who has a tail is a mermaid! First of all, I'm _not_ a maid!"

" _Debatable_ ," Wade muttered, flashing an innocent grin when the boy leveled a flat look at him. 

"Second of all, I'm of average size for my age," he sniffed, and Wade choked on his giggle. 

"That's what I tell people, too! Works every time!" Wade winked over his shoulder as he ran, having spotted another pirate barreling towards him, and he forgot about their conversation in the heat of battle. 

“This ends in one or two ways,” Wade had screamed after hours of bloodshed, grabbing a beaten crewman by his neck and digging his fingers into his soft throat. The merboy watched from his huddled corner at the very end of the deck, chest heaving, green eyes wide and face extremely pale, bordering on green. “One, you fuckers keep coming at me and I keep fucking killing you, one by one. Two, you fuckers decide to let the kid go,” he gestured to the merboy, who stiffened upon being remembered, “and we pretend this whole bloody debacle never happened and land at the next town within the next few days, never to see one another again. _Third_ ,” Wade smirked, and stabbed his sword into the meaty calf of his hostage’s leg. He screamed. “I kill you all, let the kid go, and I _still_ make it to land, never to see any one of you again.”

“Wait,” a crewman frowned and stiffened when Wade dramatically turned to him, grinning charmingly.

“ _Yes?”_

“Ah. Er. Ahhh, uhhh…why don’t’cha just…take the ship?”

“Bob!” someone hissed.

“That is an excellent question, Bob! Well done!” Wade grinned, sarcastically. Bob perked up, weirdly pleased. “That’s because I don’t _want_ to be a Captain,” he said, simply. The crew looked at one another skeptically. “No, really! I don’t want a ship, I don’t want a crew, I don’t want _anything_ to do with any of this _piracy_! I just needed a ride somewhere and pirates are always my best bet at getting there quickly and with minimal bloodshed. Usually.”

“Aren’t _you_ a pirate, though? Yer Wade ‘Deadpool’ Wilson the pirate, right?” Bob asked again, confused. “S’what we do?”

“Ah, only in _name_ , my dear Bob, only in name. Not in spirit,” Wade beamed. He could see the Captain up above, aiming a gun at him. Oh, death to everyone it was. “In all truth, I’m less a pirate and more of an _assassin_. I get paid to get rid of crews like you, not to sail the seas looking for fucking _gold._ Why would I do that? Why waste time _searching_ for it when it can just be _given_ to you for a small fee of a couple of dead bodies?”

“Then—the coat?” Bob blinked, like he still really couldn't wrap his mind around what he was saying.

“Oh, this old thing? I just like it. You pirates are the new name in fashion,” Wade winked as he shook his expensive pirate coat and slit the throat of his hostage so he could use their body as a shield _just_ as the Captain fired and the ship broke into chaos once more.

It hadn't stayed that way for long, though.

Many went overboard; many died. Others yielded and were led back down to the barracks until Wade could figure out what to do with them later.

First, though, the boy.

“What the hell are you still doing here? Don’t they teach you how to escape evil pirate ships in merman school or something?” Wade said when he noticed the trembling merboy. He thundered over to him and grabbed the huddled boy by his arm, pulling him up, his tail dry and painful-looking. He was scared and sad and pitiful and pathetic. But that was fine. Wade had always been able to do what those weak with fear couldn't.

The boy snarled viciously at the grab, his features morphing into something ugly, but Wade ignored his hissy fit. Wade had only really encountered mermen a few times in his adventures out in sea, but he did know that merman were beautiful until they felt threatened, but no one believed Wade until they saw it for themselves. “I just killed an entire ship of bad men to save you and _this_ is how you repay me? Why, you should be pledging yourself to me! You owe me, fish-boy, you owe me _big time._ ”

“You—you murdered all those people!” the boy squeaked, proving he was definitely a merbaby. Wade barely resisted cooing at him.

“No, I _saved_ you from all those people because what they were going to do to _you_ is much worse than what I just did to them,” Wade explained, peering over the edge and to the vast, dark sea. “They’re monsters pretending to be men and you’d best fucking remember that, the next time you decide to come swimming up to where you can be caught like you’re tough shit!”

“What does that make you, then? You’ve murdered all these people. You don’t even sound remorseful!” the boy stubbornly insisted, eyes flashing. He was spunky; he had spirit. He was terrified and just witnessed Deadpool butcher a whole ship like it was a casual evening and he was still giving Wade a hard time.

He—he reminded him of someone, someone he lost. Wade felt it there, in his chest, a quiet and quirky thing; much like the _first time_ , Wade had realized, he fell in love. Much like the first time he met _her_ , prowling around the docks in a raggedy dress and sooty cleavage.

_Vanessa—Nessa, Nessa, **Nessa** —_

Someone who had filled him and kept the haze at bay; kept his hands clean, kept them from shaking because they were too busy being cupped in warm palms, a soft smile against his knuckles, glittering black eyes and a wrinkled, button nose and—and—

_“Your madness matches my madness, Wade.”_

Ah, but those were haunts for another time, not now—never now.

“It makes me a _monster,”_ Wade grinned, and the boy was brought up short at the simple admission. “I don’t pretend to be anything more than a monster, so don’t go getting all _preachy_ on me about right and wrong because I don’t give a flying _fuck_. Think what you like—that I murdered them, that I liked it, that I’m the worst thing to have ever happened to you, but just know that if _I_ hadn’t done what I’d done, they would have sold you to every dirty merchant this side of the sea. It’s what they do,” Wade stated, matter-of-factly. “It’s what _I’d_ do,” he added, when that didn't get the desired response. “So, really, _you_ owe _me,_ kiddo. You owe me your _life,”_ he puffed his chest, and the boy sucked in a sharp breath, staring up at him with doe eyes.

Sweet, kind eyes.

Wade remembers feeling wretched, touching something so kind and pure.His hands should never be allowed to touch something so kind.  

“You’re the _worst_ ,” the boy whispered, voice tight. Yes, he was. Finally, someone got it! The boy’s eyes lowered, lips pressed together tightly. “But…you _still_ saved my life. My name is—it’s Peter. Thank you,” he gritted out. “I owe you my life.”

“Whoa, don’t hurt yourself there,” Wade giggled. "Wouldn't want ya' to break something!"

“Listen, I know I made a mistake, but this—there’s nothing to laugh about this! Even if they were evil men…no one deserves to die. That isn’t something we can judge,” Peter swallowed, gaze imploring and sweet and kind. “Even if my fate would have been worse…I still would have never wished something so horrible on these men. But...I understand that men can be... _cruel_ , so thank you for helping me. I mean it.”

“Hah,” Wade hummed thoughtfully as the merboy jut his chin out at Wade stubbornly. It made something hot coil deep within his belly and right below his chest; but he ignored it because it just reminded him of Nessa and instead he said, “Mermen like _you_ are the reason men are brought to ruins." Peter had flushed red and pulled back a safe distance, the red spreading down his neck prettily. Wade followed it with his eyes for a second. “Maybe when you’re _older—_ you’re much too young to take my cock,” he flashed an irreverent grin and the boy let out an offended gasp that had Wade busting into laughter before he tossed the kid back into the sea, still laughing as he went to lock himself into the Captains Quarters and tried to figure out an explanation for what just happened on this ship, for why he asked for nothing in return for the boy’s safety, for why he felt so protective over the runt, so unlike himself.

Why he thought of Vanessa when he hadn’t thought of her in _years._

 

* * *

 

There were always bodies, Wade remembers.

As far back as he can remember, there have always been bodies.  

What makes this body different, then? Wade finds himself thinking sometimes, when he isn't lost in Deadpool's madness. What makes Peter so  _important_ to him—important enough to remember him for years, to use his memory as comfort when Deadpool gets out of hand?

Wade doesn't really know. 

But he doesn't really _care_ , either.

He doesn't really care about anything at all, these days. 


	5. Chapter 5

v.

It’s been weeks since he met Peter again after his adventure in the Savage Land. 

Logan didn't even try to kill him when he arrived a week after the Solstice. Sort of. He missed, so Wade considers it square. 

The kid _is_ following him, though.

Wade thinks its _unbearably_ endearing and _that_ , along with the fact that he’s never had an admirer that pretty, is the only reason he hasn’t gone out to the shoreline and told him to leave him alone. Or so Wade would think, if he were madder. Too bad for him he’s still got a lick of sanity left.

The fact that the merman is following him around, like some guardian, is grounds for investigation.

Something’s not right— _of course_ something isn’t right. No one stalks Wade Wilson because they _want_ to. The pretty merman _has_ to and Wade can’t figure out why. Every time he’s tried, the pretty merman has squirted water in his face with an unfairly enchanting grin and distracted him from his questions with his bright eyes and easy voice.  Peter was _also_ unfairly talented at startling him when he leaned over the edge of the ships he hitched rides on. So much for being always on his toes.

In fact, the merman is _very_ tightlipped for someone whose been following Wade around for who-knows-how-long.

The only thing he got from the boy was his name, Peter, and that was _years ago._

So what did Peter _need_ from him?

Because he has to need something from him. It’s the only explanation.

“Oh, Wade, where did you go in that crazy head of yours? Come back, you big buffoon, before I punch you,” Inez Temple purrs, sitting on his lap. Wade continues staring out the window st the ocean, giving himself the time to finish the thought because Wade has known Inez long enough (unfortunately) to know that she wanted something from him. She just uses her feminine wiles at this point to fuck with him.

Surprise for her, he’s bending in the other direction too much at the moment to feel anything more than a twitch of interest.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yadda, yadda, yadda. What do you want, Inez?” Wade grumps. She rests her forearms on his shoulders and beams at him. “Yanno’ I’m only here for another night—I’ll be on the next ship out first thing in the morning so you better make it fucking quick.”

“You’re always quick.”

“Ha, ha, very funny, a performance joke, _so_ original,” Wade fake laughs. “Fuck you, I can take a pounding better than Wolvy can take gettin’ shanked in the liver with twin blades!”

Inez snorts and stands up from his lap with a roll of her eyes. Wade crosses his legs this time, reclining even further in his seat. He thinks he sees Peter out in the waves and his leg bounces impatiently. He wants to go bug the merman. It’s all he’s been doing since Peter patched him up and he discovered he’s being followed. He also wants to make sure he isn’t getting into trouble which brings him back to why he was stuck in his head in the first place: _Why_ is Peter putting himself in so much danger? If he gets caught in a net, he’s a goner. Peter had told him he had tools now to help prevent that, but the fact that he’s _needed_ to use those tools makes Wade want to break out into hives. Or kill someone. Whichever came first. 

“I need someone taken care of.”

“Duh, who and your price?”

“Alex Hayden. 900 gold.”

“WHOA,” Wade straightens up. “Isn’t that the guy you’ve been getting friendly with for the past eight years? What did Alex do _this time_?”

“He just needs to die,” Inez says through her teeth. Wade cocks his head at the wild look in her eyes. That can’t be good. Wade may be mad, but Inez is  _insane._ “Preferably in the _worst_ way you can think of, but a quick death is also acceptable. He just needs to be taken out,” she mimes cutting her throat and Wade hums, leaning back in his chair again. Inez kicks a whole chest to Wade, who pops it open with a long whistle at the generous sight that greets him.

“This is serious. You’re serious,” Wade says, closing the chest. “Lovers quarrel?”

“Hnnn,” Inez laughs with rancor. “Not quite. He cheated on me.”

“Oh. Wait, he's done that before and you haven't wanted to kill him. Not for real, anyway.”

“He cheated on me _six times_ and he _lied about it.”_

"Nevermind.”

“I would have taken him back, y’know—I do love him, but it’s a very fine line. I had one rule, Wade,  _one._ If he cheats on me overseas, he has to tell me. If he’d been honest, we could have worked it out. But he had to go and _lie_ about it to my face. So, now he’ll _die_ ,” Inez shrugs, mock innocent. “No one lies to Inez Temple and gets away with it.”

“So you really want me to do this?” Wade asks as he takes the chest in his arms and stands up, hitching it up when it starts to slip. “Because once I leave this room, I’m not stopping until he’s dead. You know that. Once a contract is made, I don’t break them.”

That sparks a memory in him—a contract is a debt, but its a debt that isn’t owed in his line of work.

Payment is always forwarded, or given in halves and honored .

Peter—Peter on the ship, huddled, terrified.

Wade—kinder, faster, and he saved him, didn’t he? But the kid owed him. He might have been a kid then, but Wade was still the type of man who preferred his debts paid, no? There was no evidence to the contrary except for Nessa but she’s—she’s _gone now._ No one knows about that side of him.

Ah.

Why didn’t he see it before?

“Yes, I'm positive. I want him dead, Wade,” she draws closer.

Meanwhile, Wade stands frozen, thoughts racing, gloved hands clenching around the edge of the chest at his realization.

“Make sure that before you kill him, you send my regards.” She kisses him suddenly, but it’s over before he can blink, and then she is sauntering back down the hall and waving him off lazily. “I’ll see you when I see you, Wade!”

“Um. Right. Crazy Inez is still crazy. Nice to know I’m not the only one,” Wade mutters, hitching the chest up again and making his way to his own room in the inn, dropping the chest in one of the closets and trying to decide how he’s going to carry so much fucking gold without anyone noticing. He’ll give some away to those in passing, he decides, because he already has too much gold stashed in every major port he’s fond of and, really, at this point, he collects gold out of hobby rather than need.

But, first, a talk.

Wade exits out of the seaside inn after struggling to put on his coat for a bit—sometimes, pirate fashion just _isn’t_ worth it—but he finds that he only makes it to the edge of the boardwalk, shouting “Peter! Heeey, Petey!” before a hand darts out of the water and he’s being pulled in by the ankle.

Wade hits the water hard, the sea cold and forbidding but so blessedly quiet. It’s the type of quiet he only ever gets when the haze takes over. He doesn’t know why he hasn’t tried swimming before; his limbs loosen and his heart quiets in the silence of the sea, the background noise of waves.

“ _Wade!_ ” Peter snarld, and Wade’s eyes snap open to find Peter glaring down at him, his fingers claws, his teeth sharp and dangerous. Wade goes to call his name but only bubbles escape. Grunting, Wade swims up and breaks the water with a deep gasp.

“What the fuck, Peter, the water’s _cold as balls!”_

“Who is she?” Peter demands.

“Wha—who? Inez? She’s a client!” Wade kicks to stay upright. Peter swims closer and grabs him by the shoulders, holding him still. Wade eyes his arms with interest—he’s way stronger than he thought he was—before Peter distracts him again with questions; so many questions like why she’s there, how long has he known her, _why did she kiss him,_ aha, _there_ it was. That’s what Wade was looking for.

“I get it now!” Wade gasps, gripping Peter’s wet shoulders. “You feel like you owe me something!”

Peter furrows his brows and Wade distantly notices how he doesn’t blink the wet out of his eyes; he doesn’t need to, not like Wade. Peter has a very thin film over his eyes that gives them a shinier look than a humans.

“ _What?_ ”

“I remember that day!” Wade exclaims. “You were caught in a net and got hauled on board and I—I vouched for you to be let go but then…there was a fight,” Wade adds, uncertainly. “There was a lot of blood and, um…”

“You killed everyone who wouldn’t agree to let me go,” Peter finishes for him. The sea is calm, swaying both of them as Wade stares down Peter, who doesn't for a second look away. Huh. Wow. Wade never noticed how entrancing his eyes were; how lulling and honeyed his voice was until he was staring right at him. “I was really young then and hadn’t fully come into my Lure when I was caught, so I was vulnerable. But now I’m not.”

“…Lure? Is that some kind of merman speak for a stinger because that is the most _interesting_ thing I’ve ever heard of—OH! Can I see it—?”

“ _No_ , Wade!” Peter barks a laugh, his cheeks flushing with color. He looks nice smiling—he should always be smiling, Wade decides. Always. “I’m not a merman, you idiot.”

“Bullshit.”

“I’m not. It’s true.”

“Hmmmm _doubt_.”

“Wade, don’t be difficult.”

“M’thinks the lady doth protests too much,” Wade drawls, gesturing down between them with a cocked brow.

Peter grins, his canines sharp and clear, and his plump lips part to talk. Wade blinks slowly as his words fade out, the realization dawning to him in pieces, then all at once. The sharp teeth, the way his face goes from alluring to horrific; the magnetic pull he had against the other crewmembers, the manic and rabid way the second mate had responded to the thought of anyone taking Peter from him. It was territorial and animalistic. Wade thought it strange how a ship turned on each other so easily. There was also the way Wade hadn’t been affected at the time—he’d still been in love with Nessa—and the way _now_ he can’t bear the thought of anyone taking Peter away from him in this moment.

“ _Ohhh!"_

Peter cocks his head.

“You’re not a merman, you’re a _Siren._ That explains so much!”

Peter beams. Wade is blinded by it. Gods, the writings sure were right about beauty and grace and all that shit. 

“Alright, _Siren_ ,” Wade straightens up in Peter’s grip. “If that’s what you _really_ are!”

“It is, you idiot.”

“Then why aren’t I dead?” Wade challenges. Peter tilts his head in fond exasperation and Wade doesn’t understand how he could _be right,_ but wrong, at the same time. “No—no, no, don’t do that! I’m right! Stop looking like that, I’m right! If you’re a Siren, you would have drowned me already and eaten my bones! It’s what you do! You find a man, play with their hearts a little, and then drown and eat them! Wait, are we still in the ‘play with their hearts’ stage? Because I’ll cry if we are—that’s _mean_ , I’d rather be eaten. Dick first if I can choose,” Wade adds, just in case, but finds he didn’t need do, because Peter just bursts out laughing, his face flushing a pretty pink and his eyes all soft and bright.

“I feel like I missed a step,” Wade mumbles, eyes narrowed. “If you’re a Siren, but you haven’t eaten me and it doesn’t look like you will anytime soon, then…is it because you owe me for saving your life? Because you know that I was kidding, right? I saved you for no fee, you’re thriving, eating men to keep your slender physique, you don’t need to… _follow me_. You should be free,” Wade adds, quietly. He’s staring at the water lapping at Peter’s chest. “It’s why I let you go. Because your kind should be free, not dumped in some tank to be ogled at by some sick bastard.”

“I haven’t eaten you because you don’t deserve it, Wade.”

Wade’s head snaps up at that. “What? Wrong. I deserve it. I completely deserve it. Have you not seen some of the shit I’ve done? If anyone deserves to be eaten, it’s _me_.”

“I don’t mean in regards to… _that,_ ” Peter sighs, more begrudging than truly upset. “I mean, _here_.” He presses a hand against his chest. “You loved someone, once.”

Wade stills.

“You loved them _very_ much—and then they broke your heart.”

_Nessa—_

“You went mad because of it,” Peter continues, in that low, sonorous tone—oddly comforting, a low vibration that spreads through his chest and down his limbs warmly.

“How do you know that?” Wade demands, roughly. “I’ve never told anyone about Vanessa—wait, _right_. Siren. Mythical creature,” he adds, upon glancing at Peter’s too bright hazel green eyes. “So that’s the type of shit you bunch can see with your demon eyes? Can’t say I’m too jealous—well, only slightly, because I _live off_ the drama,” he jokes weakly, his fingers twitching to the sword on his waist. He thinks Peter notices because then Wade feels like he’s tunnel visioning on Peter’s eyes and that has _never happened before._ “You’re so _pretty_ —wait a second, quit it! God, we both know between you and I, you can tear my neck off my shoulders faster than I can decapitate you,” Wade snaps out of it with a couple of rapid blinks, whining. “ _Plus_ my gunpowder’s all wet! Do you know how _hard_ it is to find gunpowder around these parts without getting tangled with the wrong people?”

“I thought you _were_ the wrong people.”

“Flatterer!” Wade scoffs, then grins madly when Peter chuckles.  “Fine. I’ll bite. So what does my bad luck in love have anything to do with why you haven’t eaten me dick first, and not in the fun way?”

“I want it,” Peter says casually, like he's commenting on the weather. Boy, was that the weirdest thing Wade has heard in the past year—not counting the conversation with Weasel about woodchips, pee, and a pot of honey.

“You…want it?” Wade asks slowly, squinting at Peter. “Like, you want Nessa? Because I _hate_ to tell you this, but she’s _very dead_ and that would be gross. Unless you’re into that, in which case, I will fucking _slaughter you if you touch her,_ ” Wade snarls, every muscle in his body tensing, that familiar haze blurring out the edges of his vision. “I don’t care _how_ pretty you are, I’ll gut you if you even think about touching her.”

“ _That’s it,”_ Peter hisses, the black of his eye a pinprick of need as he lurches forward, his clawed fingertips digging into Wade’s cheek. “That _love—_ I want it. We eat sailors who fall into their lust as a substitute for _love_. But if we had love, we’d never feel hunger again. I’d never feel that ache, like I can’t be full no matter how many sailors I eat. But only if you _consent_ to give it to _me,_ forever.”

“My love?” Wade blinks, the haze retracting immediately. “Like, do you mean…are you asking me to _love_ you?”

“I’m asking you to love me more than you love Vanessa—more than you’ve ever loved _anyone_ _else_ ,” Peter says, and he’s beautiful—he’s the most beautiful thing Wade has ever seen, has ever heard. When he was just a boy he had been pretty, past handsome and bordering on lovely, but now he’s enchanting and dangerous; he’s powerful, Wade can feel it in the way he grips his jaw, and he’s _other,_ felt in the way he exuded a toxic aura of _desire_ and fear. Or maybe only desire. Maybe Wade’s the one that feels fear, but he also feels desire, which means he has a fear boner, which means that Weasel was right and he didn’t come back the same after Spain _._

“I-I can’t…I can’t do that.”

“Why not?" Peter frowns, and the beautiful image flickers to something horrid for a split second before he’s back, all human-like and charming.

“Love takes time,” Wade says, truthfully. “I can’t just _give you_ love. If I could just do that then everything would be easier in my life. Vanessa and I…we didn’t fall in love overnight. Sort of. Ok, I loved her tits, but that’s different—anyway! I fell in love with her overtime. We were together for two _years_ before I realized that I couldn’t do it without her and now—!” Wade stops, a familiar stone settling deep in his gut. “Now…”

“It doesn’t have to be that way, Wade. I’m a Siren, remember? It _can_ be different. That’s why we need consent. You _can_ give me your love, it’s just…” Peter looks uncomfortable here, like he doesn’t want to say what’s next. “If you do it, you’ll forget Vanessa,” he admits, then looks like he regrets it, then forges on before Wade can tell him to fuck off, “That’s why it’s so rare for humans to consent to this and we lie about it.”

“You didn’t lie to me.”

“I didn’t _want_ to lie to you,” Peter admits. “I…want it willingly. I could have also forced you by drowning you. Humans will agree to most of anything under fear of death, or so they tell me. But even if they did, it wouldn’t be _real!_ Love wasn’t given under ideal circumstances which means that it would be _weaker_ compared to love given under consensual and ideal parameters! I don’t understand it— _everyone_ says it doesn’t matter, but it does, that’s why Harry nearly died last year of love sickness, but _no one_ agrees with me! They just say he picked wrong, but how can we _pick wrong_ when we were _created_ for this? I just don’t—!”

“Okay, honey, enough with your little scholar rants, I get it. If I consent to give you my love, you live, I live, and we fuck every now and then _at least?”_ Wade squints at him distrustfully.

Peter snorts. “Yes, Wade. Very elegantly put.”

“You didn’t pick me for my elegance, you picked me for my _passion!”_ Wade preens and perks up when Peter chuckles, his eyes softening around the corners. Perhaps he doesn’t notice how he’s relaxed; how, the longer time passes, the softer he becomes despite holding Wade at his mercy. “Wait. I like to take it. How are you going to…are you going to stick your _tail_ in? Because, and hear me out, I’m willing to try _anything_  twice—!”

Peter chokes, cheeks flushing red, and he shakes his head frantically. “No—no, no! No tail! We—ah, if you do give me your love, I’d be strong enough to walk on land like a man! We’re cursed and it can be broken with love freely given from an honest man. Often, many sailors believe this means if they can get a Siren to fall in love with them, they break the curse, but it’s _much_ more complex than that and—!”

Wade knows what his decision is. He suspected it when he first saw him, felt that quirky thing in his chest. But he’s known it since he realized Peter _asked_ for his love. Peter’s naïve and he doesn’t know it, but he’s not wrong. He’s asking for love freely given. He’s just asking for Wade to _love him._ It’s not a transaction. It’s not a physical thing—at least Wade hopes it isn’t because that sounds extremely painful—but loving Peter _does_ _mean_ forgetting about Vanessa. It means overcoming the grief of his loss and moving on; two things Wade had adamantly rejected these past years because he thought he could never love someone else as much as he loved Nessa. But, now, looking at this boy—because he is still a boy, new and floundering in the face of love—Wade thinks he can do it.

He _can_ love him.

He can overcome his grief, and move on with him.

He’s already half-way there, anyway.

Because what else is he going to live for? Gold? Notoriety? The thrill of it all?

Wade is tired.

He’s tired of trying and tired of living and tired of killing and he’s just so _tired._

He saved this boy once…maybe he can return the favor and save Wade, this time.

Or at the very least kill him. Wade thinks he wouldn’t mind finding his death in the hands of such a pretty, pretty boy.

“Alright,” Wade decides, and Peter cuts himself off, wide-eyed. “Alright, yeah. Yeah, let’s do it. Fuck it. Take it,” he grins, and it’s less mad and more hopeful. Maybe this _is_ what he needs. He knows Nessa wouldn’t have wanted him to become what he has; to wander all alone, taking thrills where he can, lost to the haze. “Take my love. I’ll give it to you for three lifetime installments of risky fucking in alleyways.”

“You’ll really give it to me?” Peter whispers, seemingly not hearing his last words. Shame. Wade’s a comedic genius. _That_ has to change if they’re going to work out. “Forever? You know this means you’ll forget about her, right? I’ll be the keeper of your heart. You _know_ that, right?”

“Yeah. I…think it’s for the best. Ever since Nessa passed away, I’ve just been—wandering. I’ve been angry, and I don’t really have anything left to go back to…except this,” Wade admits, taking a deep, shuddering, breath. “So I figure I’ve already hit fuck it. It can’t get much worse from here.”

Peter presses his hand against Wade’s chest and his sharp fingernails press against the wet material of his shirt, almost warningly. He leans in and Wade sucks in a breath when lips hover just a hairs breadth apart from his, his hazel eyes burning into his hot enough to make his heart rabbit in familiar jitters, like he’s fifteen and new to it all. “Promise me you’ll love me,” Peter asks softly.

“I promise I’ll love you,” Wade swallows. “Uh. Forever.”

Peter grins and it’s all sharp teeth and dark, dangerous slit eyes and then his lips melt against Wade’s and it’s the _best feeling in the whole world._

Up until his heart gets ripped out of his chest.

Literally.

“Uh—plot twist?” Wade wheezes, rearing back as Peter reveals his still-beating heart, clutched possessively within Peter’s clawed hands. The water laps at his beating heart, blood drizzling down Peter’s forearms, pooling dark red all around them. Peter looks more monster than man in those split seconds of dying. “I didn’t—think—you meant— _literally,_ ” Wade gasps, shutting his eyes because _fuck,_ he can’t believe he just _died,_ he can’t believe he just literally _died_. Weasel was going to have a _field day_ when he found out—no, wait, he’d never find out, Wade will be lost at sea, forever, dead at the hands of—

 _Well, there are worst things I could have died by,_ Wade decides in a sudden moment of clarity; no haze, no anxiety, no fear. It’s quiet like it’s never been before and this time the only bodies here are his own. Wade tightens his grip on Peter’s wrist and grits out, against his ear, not even feeling the icy cold of the sea water anymore: “If you give it away, I _swear_ I’ll come back and punch you in your new ball sack,” before he exhales a shuddering breath and falls against a surprisingly warm chest.

“I’m so sorry, Wade,” Peter’s sonorous voice fills his mind, gentle and remorseful. “There’s no better way than to do it all at once—just sleep. It’ll pass soon.”

Not like he has much of a choice, being dead and all.


	6. Chapter 6

vi.

“KELLOGS!” Wade screams as he shoots upright in a soft bed. His eyes dart to the sheets, tangled around his feet, and then Peter’s concerned face is there, hazel green eyes all wide and worried. “GAH! How the fuck—you killed me!” Wade points a finger at him, offended and a little impressed. “It was kind of neat, but you still _killed me!”_

“Wade, how can you be dead if you’re sitting right here talking to me?”

“I don’t _know_ —how can you _literally_ rip someone’s heart outta’ their chest after they told you they loved you!” Wade throws back, grappling at his chest for—nothing. He rips open his shirt and there’s no wound. But he had been so sure that he felt—ah, there it is. Or, rather, there it _wasn’t_. He couldn’t feel a heartbeat. In fact, as Wade pressed a hand on his chest, he couldn’t feel anything at all. “Um. That’s not normal.”

“Sorry. There isn’t any good way to do it except as a surprise.”

“How long have I been out?”

“Just a few hours. You were still bleeding when I brought you to shore but you had the keys to the inn room in your pocket, so I figured the safest place you could regenerate would be here,” Peter says with a grim sigh. He turns onto his very human knees to crawl over to him and Wade feels his breath catch at the sexy, sexy sight. He remembers, wait—there was a woman who—

“Ow!” Wade whines, rubbing his chest. “What, are random heart attacks a thing I’m going to be going through from now on?”

Peter frowns a bit, but continues to crawl over to him, pulling himself into his lap like it’s the most natural thing in the world. It _is_ the most natural thing in the world, Wade thinks suddenly, this that they have is the best thing in the world, as his hands grip his slender waist and Peter bends down to press his forehead against Wade’s, murmuring words that Wade vaguely hears through the gentle quiet that consumes his mind, the calm he hasn’t felt since—

Wade grunts and rubs his chest again.

Peter hums this time, cupping Wade’s face now. “It’ll stop hurting soon,” he whispers. Wade leans into his warmth like he’s starved for it. “Once you forget her.”

“Forget who?”

“…Vanessa.”

There’s a small pang at the name, but Wade just shakes his head at it. It must just have something to do with the fact that he got his fucking heart ripped out of his chest. Yeah. Sounds reasonable.

“Who’s Vanessa?” Wade asks instead, and this time his chest doesn’t hurt. Nothing hurts, but there’s a brief sense of loss at the question. He doesn’t know from what. He just feels it, a heavy, lurid, thing in his gut that drags his eyes down, unseeing, before Peter is bringing his chin up again and pressing his lips against him with a need that has Wade forgetting why he felt loss in the first place.

How could he feel lost when he has _Peter?_  

And isn’t that a weird thought?

“You did something,” Wade says quietly, a part of him he didn’t know he still had. It’s silent and calm. That’s how he knows something tragic happened to get him this way. Peter guiltily looks away but Wade hugs him tighter against his chest, pressing his cheek against Peter’s temple. “It’s fine. I haven’t felt…this quiet in a long time. Didn’t know I could. Usually the haze, it just…”

“I know,” Peter hums softly, turning his face in so his nose can press against the underside of his chin. “I watched you for a long time. At first, I just watched you because I felt like I had to, but you’d have your quiet moments, and then I realized _I_ wanted those quiet moments. All the time,” he adds, shifting so he can press Wade to the mattress. Oops. Wait. He can’t be getting distracted by a pretty man in his bed. He still needs to do Inez’s job before she finds him and decapitates _him_.

But maybe that can wait, Wade thinks as he dazedly watches Peter look down at him like he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to the Siren. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn’t. Who the fuck knows. Wade just knows he hasn’t felt this good since—

(blonde hair tied in braids and warm, motherly, and big blue eyes looking at him as he helped in the kitchen)

—since a long time ago, so Wade figures he deserves this little drop of paradise. For once. For as long as Peter will have him.

“If you watched me for as long as I _think_ you did, then you should know I’m better _loud_ ,” he grins rakishly, waggling his brows. “Kind of a screamer, not to brag.”

Peter’s lips curl up deviously and he slides back on Wade’s thighs, stretching his arms until their hands interwind and Peter hovers over him, those hazel eyes just as captivating as the first time he saw them. They’re hot and dark and Wade can’t wait. “I think I can keep you quiet— _if_ you behave,” Peter smirks, and Wade knows he’s in love, he’s—

“I love you,” Wade blurts out, like a compulsion, like he can’t help himself, and then he freezes. “Wait—shit, fuck, I messed up, don’t go!”

“I love you, too,” Peter says simply, his green eyes flashing brighter than before, and just as Wade thinks that _maybe_ he got himself tangled in something that’ll be very, very painful in the future, Peter leans down to catch his lips in a deep kiss and Wade doesn’t think about it anymore.

He got himself a Siren and he doesn’t mind dying a billion little deaths for the creature as long as he keeps the bodies and the noise and the haze at bay. 

_(“Your madness matches my—!”)_

Wade grunts at the slipping memory and rubs his chest, brushing away the pain when Peter grinds down on his lap because he has _other_ things to think about than weird memories he barely feels belong to him.

Peter makes his madness ebb; he doesn't need to match it. Peter makes his madness quiet, go away, settle down in the back of his mind like a gentle fog.

That’s all he needs.


End file.
